Contact centers are generally known. Contact centers are typically used wherever an organization has occasion to handle a multitude of individual calls with clients. Usually, the organization will hire a number of agents to interact with its clients.
Contacts between the organization and clients may be handled under any of a number of different communication mediums. For example, contacts may be initiated by clients through the public switch telephone network (PSTN) by a client calling a telephone number provided by the organization. Alternatively, the organization may place telephone calls to its clients. In either case, connection of the telephone call with an agent may be handled by an automatic call distributor (ACD).
Similarly, contacts with clients through the Internet may be handled by a host of a contact center. Contacts in this case may be handled under a voice format (e.g., VoIP) or under a text format (e.g., e-mail, chat, etc.).
Once a contact is detected, the ACD may select an agent to handle the call. The agent may be selected based upon the agent's qualifications in handling the type of contact involved, based upon experience with the client involved or based upon idle time. Once an agent is selected, the ACD may automatically route the contact to a telephone or desktop of the selected agent.
As the contact is delivered to the agent, a host of the contact center may retrieve any records associated with previous contacts with the client and deliver those records to the selected agent as a screen pop at the same instant that the contact is delivered. If the host can determine a purpose of the call, the host may also display text on the terminal of the selected agent containing a message to be delivered to the client.
While contact centers work relatively well, the loading of contact centers in terms of contacts processed is often fluid. The rate of contacts arriving within any one contact center of a contact center system may often change radically over a very short time period. Often the change in loading requires that supervisory personnel frequently reconfigure the way that contact center system handle contacts. Accordingly, a need exists for better ways of allowing contact centers to adapt to changing loading levels.